Visual Arts

About Eyal Adler Kelner

Eyal Adler Kellner, painter, born 1970, Israel.

Education
1992-96 Bezalel Academy of Art & Design, Jerusalem, Art Department., graduate

Awards And Prizes
1998-2000, The America-Israel Cultural Foundation, Sharett Fund Grant
2002 Payis Foundation for Art and Culture,”First Portrait” Grant, Mifal HaPayis

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2011 Barbur Gallery, Jerusalem, Curator: Eyal Sasson

2000,2002 Kibutz Gallery, Tel Aviv. Curator: Tali Tamir

Artist Statement

The painting experience of over 20 years has been the basis for a great ambition to create something different from rectangular paintings. The experience of the panorama of Mesdag in The Hague and inspiration from close colleagues led me to thread a still life into a peripheral, panoramic painting.

Before that, for me, still life painting was also a significant turning point after 20 years of humorous and narrative painting of the adventures of the artist and Its colleague, Herzel, a character who joined in the second half of those 20 years of feature painting.

There is a magical act in the painting that tries to capture the viewer’s heart. Like the magician, the painter tries to mislead or capture the viewer’s gaze. Threading the image multiplies its power. The viewer must move differently in front of the painting. In the panorama, the viewer cannot look at the whole painting at a glance. His gaze must be wandering.

Walking backward and moving away from the painting is also limited. The viewer is trapped. The memory of the image or its perpetuation on the mobile phone as a digital image is also not possible.

Beyond the challenged viewer experience, the prolonged creative experience also requires unusual resources from the painter. This pictorial journey is an intense experience in which the painter like the viewer does not see the whole work throughout most of the duration of the painting.

Panorama is the creation of a ‘site specific’ in the full sense of the word because the hanging is adapted to a space of a pre-defined size and the flexibility of the hanging or its curation is very limited.

For the past two years, I have added a panoramic display space in a room (“the round room”) at my house. The size limit of the room threw me into different panoramas, far from the panorama of Mesdag, to the murals in the Egyptian tombs.

The realization that in a small space gives the feeling of the tomb overrides the illusion of relocation. It led me to choose a panoramic painting from Mount Herzel’s tomb view. And there is nothing more fun than drawing from playing the “last drawing” game.

The Herzel Panorama is a painting that is 650 cm long and 90 cm high. Tempera on 21 wooden boards. The painting hangs in a circle of almost 360 degrees.

The Herzl Panorama is a tribute and identification with the heroes of the Balfour Protest. I participated little in this protest in bridges and squares. Slowly I withdrew from it and turned to the studio, to express my protest from there.

From the point of view of Herzl’s grave, which usually stands desolate in the middle of a large square, I realized that the military cemetery is not visible. You do not see the section of the Nation’s leaders and you do not see Yad Vashem. Maybe they didn’t want it to see.

Eyal Adler Kelner

Visual Arts
Drawing & Painting, Design & Technology

Zur Hadassa, Israel
Grant Recipient

Artist Gallery